Anabasis

And Seuthes asked: Would you even be willing, Episthenes, to die for this boy’s sake? Then Episthenes stretched out his neck and said, Strike, if the lad bids you and will be grateful.

Seuthes asked the boy whether he should strike Episthenes in his stead. The boy forbade it, and besought him not to slay either. Thereupon Episthenes threw his arms around the boy and said: It is time, Seuthes, for you to fight it out with me for this boy; for I shall not give him up.

And Seuthes laughed and let the matter go. He resolved, however, to establish a camp where they were, in order that the people on the mountain should not be supplied with food from these villages, either.[*](Supplies from the villages in the plain having already been cut off ( 5).) So he himself went quietly down the mountain and encamped upon the plain, while Xenophon with his picked men took quarters in the uppermost village below the summit and the rest of the Greeks close by, among the so-called mountain Thracians.

Not many days had passed after this when the Thracians on the mountain came down and entered into negotiations with Seuthes in regard to a truce and hostages. And Xenophon came and told Seuthes that his men were in bad quarters and the enemy were close at hand; he would be better pleased, he said, to bivouac in the open in a strong position than to be in the houses and run the risk of being destroyed. But Seuthes bade him have no fear and showed him hostages that had come from the enemy.